Doris Hanson Director, Shield & Refuge Ministry

Dear Praying Friends,

It’s no surprise that the mainline LDS church is hemorrhaging members. Jesus Himself said a house not built on the “Rock” has only sand for its foundation and will eventually fall with a great big crash. The LDS church and polygamy groups rely upon self-righteous works for salvation. Although young people leave polygamy groups and sometimes whole families get out, rarely do they seek biblical truths. They’ve been so burned on religion and the greediness, lies, deceit, and its sexual perversions, that they generally reject all religion. Or sadly, because the LDS church is ‘familiar’ some who leave polygamy will seek the LDS church despite that it’s the same perverted Joseph Smith all Mormons idolize. More tragically, some folks who left polygamy as young adults will return to the group in their senior years, proof of the guilt and the deep brainwashing that haunts them. Unless the truth replaces the void in their hearts and minds, they are prone to return to the poison of the false religion they had left years earlier. Jesus said:

Matthew 12:43-45 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

We thank you for your prayers and support that make it possible for us to bring Biblical truths to polygamists

DID THEY REALLY SAY THAT?

Celestial marriage is a holy and an eternal ordinance; as an order of the priesthood, it has the name the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Adam was the first one on this earth to enter into this type of union, and it has been the Lord's order in all ages when the fulness of the gospel has been on earth. Its importance in the plan of salvation and exaltation cannot be overestimated. The most important single thing that any member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can ever do in this world is to marry the right person by the right authority in the right place.
-- Bruce McKonkie, Mormon Doctrine, pg 111.

BUT THE BIBLE SAYS….

Mark 12:25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Luke 20:34-35 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.

MORMON POLYGAMY HISTORY

~~It all began with Joseph Smith~~

  Brigham Young was the 2nd president of the Mormon Church. He had 56 wives and preached on polygamy in dozens of sermons. Here a just a few samples of Brigham Young’s teachings:

“I tell you more: Adam is the father of our spirits. He lived upon an earth, he did abide his creation and did honor to his calling and priesthood and obeyed his master or lord, and probably many of his wives did the same, and they lived and died upon an earth and then were resurrected again to immortality and eternal life.” Brigham Young’s Sermons, Vol 2
“Now, many inquiries will be made about the Savior, such as: Who is he? Is he the father of Adam? Is he the God of Adam? When Christ has finished his labor and presented it to his father, then he, Adam, will receive a fullness. That is all easily understood by me. He cannot receive a fullness of the kingdoms he has organized until they are completed...Many inquire, "Who is this Savior?" I will tell you what I think about it. ... I will tell you what I reckon. I reckon that Father Adam was a resurrected being with his wives and posterity, and in the Celestial Kingdom, they were crowned with glory, immortality and eternal lives, with thrones, principalities and powers, and it was said to him, "It is your right to organize the elements, and to your creations and posterity there shall be no end, but you shall add kingdom to kingdom and throne to throne, and still behold the vast eternity of unorganized matter." Adam, then, was a resurrected being. And I reckon our spirits and the spirits of all the human family were begotten by Adam and born of Eve. "How are we going to know this?" I reckon it. And I reckon that Adam came into the Garden of Eden and did actually eat of the fruit that he, himself, planted. ... there was previous understanding and the whole plan was previously calculated, before the Garden of Eden was made, that he would reduce his posterity to sin, misery, darkness, wickedness, wretchedness and to the power of the devil, that they might be prepared for an exaltation, for without this they could not receive one.”

--Brigham Young’s Sermons, Vol 2.

“When you see your father in the heavens you will see Adam; when you see your mother that bore your spirit you will see Mother Eve ...somebody has broken the chains of death ... and given you a resurrection. How are you going to get your resurrection? You will get it by the president of the resurrection ... and that is Joseph Smith. Hear it all ye ends of the earth: if ever you enter into the Kingdom of God it is because Joseph Smith let you go there. No man or woman in this generation will get a resurrection and be crowned without Joseph Smith says so.”

--Brigham Young’s Sermons, Vol 2, pg 235

FROM OUR MAILBOX:

“I want to thank you for these latest two podcasts you did with Sandra Tanner. They were wonderful and I have filed them away with all the other podcasts you did down through the years with Sandra so I can listen to them over and over. For the past 8 years I have been studying to try to learn just how and why Mormonism is wrong --as well as learning the true Biblical Christian understanding of who God is, who man is and what Salvation is all about. Thank you for the help that your program gives on the truth that mainstream Mormonism and the "Mormon fundamentalists" are indeed offspring of the same corrupt father--Joseph Smith. Keep up the good work you do of exposing Mormonism for the hoax and fraud that it has always been from the beginning and still is today." --E.M.

“A few years back I discovered I knew a bit more about Mormonism than some actual Mormons. This happened when [talking with a Mormon] that in mainstream Mormonism, polygamy doesn't exist on Earth but it does in Heaven. She shot back at me, "I never heard that. Where did you hear that?" She was outraged. And she refused to look at the sources I cited. To me that sort of sounds like [your] review of "Under the Banner of Heaven." --S.Z.

Example of Terminology used by the Mormon Church and Mormon Polygamists:

FULL SALVATION ACCORDING TO MORMONISM:
Full salvation is obtained in and through the continuation of the family unit in eternity, and those who obtain it are gods. Full salvation is attained by virtue of knowledge, truth, righteousness, and all true principles. Many conditions must exist in order to make such salvation available to men.
--Bruce McKonkie, Mormon Doctrine, pg 603:

“Their FULL salvation as well as God’s love and grace are strictly conditional. Many who did not ‘earn’ full salvation will be “saved to be damned.”

Update on Samuel Bateman who was arrested by the FBI. Samuel Bateman is the most recent self-proclaimed prophet arising from the Mormon polygamy culture. He is a product of the FLDS polygamy group. He was arrested in August 2022 after three young girls were found hidden in a cargo trailer he was towing near Flagstaff, Arizona. During the months after his arrest, more under-age girls were discovered, and more illegal activities were uncovered. By December 10th of last year, the ugliness of his activities was picked up by news media around the globe, and now Samuel Bateman is known worldwide for his predatory behavior and child trafficking in the name of God for the purpose of Mormon polygamy. He and three adult ‘wives’ helped him arrange the escape of young girls from foster care. Prosecutors accuse him and the adult females of unlawfully “seizing, confining, inveigling, kidnaping, abducting, using as decoy and carrying away” three children and transporting them to Washington state. He is also accused of taking some of the girls as child brides. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His trial date has been pushed back from January 10th and is now scheduled to begin March 14th 2023 because his attorney asked for more time to prepare.
Mormon polygamy culture continues to prove Jesus was right when He said a “bad root cannot produce good fruit.”

POLYGAMY IN THE NEWS:

Vanguard Academy, the Kingston polygamy group-owned charter school has been charged with illegal and unethical use of public funds. They paid their own church-owned businesses to provide needed services for the school such as, garbage, food services, janitorial services and supplies etc. Most of their students are children of Kingston polygamous families— scant little ethnic diversity in the school. The Utah state school board had given them until November 2022 to change their board of directors and their method of operation, but they failed to meet the deadline. So, typical of Utah, the State school board did nothing, but postpone the deadline until Spring 2023.

The Utah Supreme Court ruled in December 2022 that a polygamous father had the right to teach polygamy doctrine to his children even though the mother of the children rejected and left the polygamous marriage and received primary custody of the children. The lower court had forbidden the father to teach their unique religious doctrine to his kids, the higher court said he could teach them about his religious beliefs.

Fox News reported, “The Court ruled the father can talk about his faith or any other faith with his children. But any major life decisions about whether they would be baptized into the faith? That remains with his ex-wife who has sole legal custody of the children.”

A dissenting judge wrote, “We are presented with a factual record that demonstrates that if given the opportunity to influence his children's religious upbringing, [the father] will harm his children," Justice Pearce wrote. "The evidence in record — evidence we are duty-bound to accept as true —reveals that [the father] will harm his children by, among other things, promoting a religious culture that will encourage his daughters to be child brides. The evidence shows that [the father] will teach his children to obey authority figures who
will instruct them to reject people outside The Order — people including their own mother. Against this factual backdrop, the district court did not err when it concluded that [the mother] alone should exercise all of the parental rights associated with religion."

NOTE: In Utah it’s a divine privilege to be a polygamist so its not surprising a SUPREME Court Judge would allow a father to teach his children to be polygamists. However, polygamy is illegal, so our Justice merely ruled on the side of lawbreakers.

Praises & Prayer Requests:

• Each Christmas we help needy ex-polygamous families. We provided Christmas for two families in 2022 and praise God for those who helped us help these families. We thank Main Street Church in Brigham City whose members helped tremendously. Please pray that after rejecting the polygamous lifestyle, the families will seek for and find God’s revealed truth. Pray God will open their hearts to believe!!

We are available to speak to your group, association, church or organization about the Mormon Fundamentalists of today.

Just call Doris:  801-649-3103, or Email: doris@shieldandrefuge.org